Vending machines intended for dispensing packs of cigarettes were once plentiful. However, many factors have combined to reduce their availability throughout society. Social pressures, based on health and other concerns, have been urging people not to smoke, and a smaller proportion of the population now has a need for cigarette vending machines. Moreover, cigarette pack costs have increased to a point where people are nervous about entrusting the required funds to a machine, which may break down and fail to deliver the requested product.
Furthermore, the conventional cigarette pack vending machines are complex, expensive, and massive devices. They tend to offer customers an exceedingly large selection of cigarette brands, and include complex and costly coin and bill changers to handle the large amounts of money needed for purchases. They tend to require a large amount of floor space, and this floor space is typically restricted to being near electrical outlets. In short, the demand for conventional cigarette pack vending machines often fails to justify the monetary, space, and other costs associated with these machines.
On the other hand, a vending machine for dispensing individual cigarettes need not suffer from the drawbacks associated with cigarette pack vending machines. For example, a customer need not entrust a large amount of money to a machine to purchase a single cigarette. In addition, many people have become part-time smokers. These part time smokers often wish to acquire only a single cigarette at a time. For those who are trying to quit smoking or to reduce their smoking, the ability to acquire only a single cigarette frees them from having to suffer the temptations of having a readily available stock of cigarettes from the remainder of a recently purchased pack. Moreover, an opportunity to acquire individual cigarettes from a vending machine frees people from having to obtain individual cigarettes through begging their friends and acquaintances.
However, the nature of cigarettes poses several obstacles to the successful operation of an individual-cigarette vending machine. For example, cigarettes are extremely lightweight and have a rather soft, spongy consistency when compared to items typically dispensed in vending machines. The lightweight and spongy nature of cigarettes gives them a tendency to become misaligned or jammed together so that they do not feed in a manner required by conventional vending machines. Moreover, sanitary requirements require the loading of cigarettes into a vending machine with little or no human handling.